Northumbrian Culture
This article primarily focuses upon the culture of the Northumbrian heartland of North East England, which includes the two counties of Northumberland and County Durham. Other traditionally Northumbrian-speaking lands such as the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire, as well as the Cumbrian region, tend to have separate regional traditions. Northumbrian music The musical tradition of Northumberland and Durham is highly distinctive. According to 'World Music: The Rough Guide', "nowhere is the English living tradition more in evidence than the border lands of Northumbria, the one part of England to rival the counties of the west of Ireland for a rich unbroken tradition. The region is particularly noted for its tradition of border ballads, the Northumbrian smallpipe (a form of bagpipe unique to North East England), the border pipe or half-long pipe (a tradition shared with Southern Scotland) as well as also a strong fiddle tradition in the region that was already well established in the 1690s. Northumbrian music is characterised by considerable influence from other regions (and vice versa), particularly southern Scotland and other parts of the north of England, as well as Irish immigrants. Northumbrian smallpipes The Northumbrian smallpipes (also known as the Northumbrian pipes) are bellows-blown bagpipes from North East England, where they have been an important factor in the local musical culture for more than 200 years. The family of the Duke of Northumberland have had an official piper for over 250 years, and in more recent times the Mayor of Gateshead and the Lord Mayor of Newcastle have both re-established the tradition by appointing official Northumbrian pipers. In a survey of the bagpipes in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University, the organologist Anthony Baines wrote: "It is perhaps the most civilized of the bagpipes, making no attempt to go farther than the traditional bagpipe music of melody over drone, but refining this music to the last degree." Border pipes/Half-long pipes The border pipes are a type of bagpipe related to the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe. It is perhaps confusable with the Scottish smallpipe, although it is a quite different and much older instrument. Although most modern Border pipes are closely modelled on similar historic instruments, the modern Scottish smallpipes are a modern reinvention, inspired by historic instruments but largely based on Northumbrian smallpipes in their construction. The name, which is modern, refers to Scotland's border country, where the instrument was once common, so much so that many towns there used to maintain a piper. The instrument was found much more widely than this, however; it was noted as far north as Aberdeenshire, south of the Border in Northumbria and elsewhere in the north of England. While the instrument had been widespread in the 18th century, by the late 19th century it was no longer played. There was an attempt to revive it in North East England in the 1920s, with a revived form of the instrument being adopted by the Northumberland boy scouts and Durham University OTC. The term half-long pipes is now used to refer specifically to surviving examples from this period; these were in part modelled on an 18th century set which had belonged to Muckle Jock Milburn, and is now in the Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum; however, they were given a different drone configuration. Since the 1970s and 1980s, the instrument has been more successfully revived in the North East of England, however, is less popular than the Northumbrian smallpipes. Traditional Dress Traditional clothing in North East typically centres around its historical industries: namely mining, agriculture, and fishing, and therefore covers a wide range of traditional folk garments. Although these garments are no longer worn in day to day life, several have been retained for the sake of festive and ceremonial occasions: with the traditional dress of the Northumbrian miner being retained in a stylised form by Northumbrian folk dancers, and the traditional border tartan maud being the garment of choice for Northumbrian pipers today. Miners' dress: breeks and hoggers The terms breeks and hoggers refer to the two types of leg garments worn by Northumbrian miners. Breeks is the Northumbrian word for "breeches", a term also used in the Scots language, which denotes an article of clothing covering the body from the waist down, with separate coverings for each leg, usually stopping just below the knee. Hoggers are essentially the same as breeks, however shorter - typically stopping just above the knee. Miners would usually wear their breeks or hoggers alongside long socks or stockings. The rapper sword dance is a variation of sword dance that emerged from the pit villages of North East England along the banks of the Tyne, with the tradition soon spreading Wearside as well. Today the dance remains a fundamental part of Northumbrian culture; and employs a stylised version of the traditional dress of the Northumbrian miner, consisting of hoggers or breeks paired with stockings, alongside a white shirt and a coloured sash around the waist (akin to the Catalan faixa). Maud and Border tartan A maud is a woollen blanket or plaid woven in a pattern of small black and white checks various known as Border tartan, Shepherd's check, Shepherd's plaid, Northumbrian tartan or Northumberland tartan. It was in common use as an item of clothing in the southern counties of Scotland and the northern counties of England (including the Northumbrian region) until the early twentieth century, and would have been primarily found in hilly areas to the west of the region, such as the Cheviot Hills or North Pennines. Today, the maud remains a key part of Northumbrian regional dress due to its use by Northumbrian pipers. Furthermore, Border tartan has been repopularised by the Northumberland tartan company based in Ashington, who sell various products in Border tartan ranging from full Highland dress to everyday items such as scarves, flat caps, waistcoats and ties. Women's dress Northumbrian women would wear a dress, or a skirt and blouse, with an apron on top as protection from dirt. Bonnets were headwear among Northumbrian women, and in colder months shawls and headscarves were also common additions. Bondager outfit The traditional dress of the bondagers, women field-workers in North Northumberland is particularly unique. Their costume typically included a shady hat and a wimple known as a 'heid hankie'. William Cobbett, when he rode through the border area in the early 1830s, described them as looking like ‘romantic milkmaids’. In 1939 Donald Scott of Caistron wrote that ‘the visitor to the farms of Glendale and Tweedside may yet see the ‘bondager’ busy in the field, clad in what may be described as the last remaining peasant costume in England’.